Storage and access of digital content

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, the invention provides a method, comprising providing a first communications channel to transmit digital content to a notes-access application for storage against a particular user, the first communications channel being selected from the group consisting of an SMS channel, an MMS channel, a fax channel, an e-mail channel, and an IM channel; responsive to receiving digital content from said user via the first communications channel storing said digital content in the database associated with said notes-access application; and providing a second communications channel to the notes-access application whereby the digital content stored by the notes-access application against said user is provided to said user, the second communications channel being selected from the group consisting of an SMS channel, an MMS channel, a fax channel, an e-mail channel, and an IM channel.

FIELD

Embodiments of the invention relate generally to the storage of digitalcontent, e.g. digital notes, created on a handheld device such as amobile telephone.

BACKGROUND

In the mid-1970s, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (“3M”)invented a useful office product, Post-it Notes®, which provides smallpieces of paper for people to jot down notes. Post-it Notes® have becomevery popular and are used today in a myriad of ways, not only in officesbut also in homes.

With the advent and penetration of computer technology and the Internet,various computer applications have come to market in an attempt tosimulate the Post-it Notes®. These applications allow people toelectronically create, store, and send notes.

Although these applications duplicate the function of Post-it Notes®,they do not fully exploit the modern computer's powerful ability toorganize information. Generally within these applications, the notes arestored randomly. The applications do not provide much help to organizeand identify the notes. People rely on these applications to createnotes in a manner similar to how they created paper notes. However, theyhave to organize and manage those notes by themselves. Advancednote-taking applications such as the Evernote notes application existand are designed to give users a single place to store various types ofnotes and other information/content. The notes are accessible at anytime, in any place (from a computer). Such advance-note takingapplications are not limited to storing only text notes.

Although feature-rich, these advanced-note taking applications arelimited as they are desktop applications designed to run on a desktop orlaptop computer system. As a result, a user can only access his/hernotes on the desktop/laptop computer system on which the advanced-notetaking application is installed. For universal access to the notes i.e.access at any location the desktop/laptop computer system would have tobe carried around. Alternatively, the notes may be saved to portablestorage media, such as flash memory card or portable hard disk, whichthen has to be carried. The latter case does not allow access of thenotes on computer systems on which the advanced-note taking applicationis not installed. This can be very inconvenient and frustrating.

With the advent of the World Wide Web, it became possible to developweb-based note-taking applications. One example of a web-basednote-taking application includes Google®. Notebook. Such web-basedapplications retain the basic functions of their desktop peers, butallow a user's notes to be saved on the web. So that the notes may beaccessed from any location as long as there is Internet access.

A limitation common to all of the above note-taking application is thatthey can only be used with computers (i.e. desktop and laptop computersystems), or in some cases with smart devices such as smart phones thatapproximate the functions of such computers. Although portable computerssuch as notebooks and tablets are getting lighter and smaller, they arestill quite large when compared to a cell phone. Even portable devicessuch a smart phones are bulky and expensive when compared to a regularcell phone. Moreover, the percentage of people that own smartphone-typedevices is still quite small. To address the small screen-size ofsmartphone-type devices, some companies have provided scaled-downversions of their web-based note-taking applications, but as tradeoff,the functions are limited.

Another limitation of web-based note-taking applications is that theycan only be used when an Internet connection is available. Additionally,some web-based note-taking applications may even require a broadbandInternet connection. About 30 percent of U.S. families still do not haveInternet access at home. Further, broadband adoption is still just over50 percent. While Wi-Fi technology is being pushed heavily, public“hotspots” is still scarce, and many of them are not free. Cell phoneservice providers are constructing 3G or 4G networks, which can supportdata network along with voice network. But currently those kinds ofnetwork can only cover a few metro cities. Moreover, the devices thatsupport such networks are expensive and the service fee is still high.

On the contrary, the regular voice wireless network is by far thelargest network. It covers at least 95 percent of the U.S. population.Furthermore, cell phones are by far the most popular mobile device andat least 70 percent of Americans own at least one cell phone. A vastmajority of these cell phones are non-smart phone devices. Since thesefacts are unlikely to change in the near future, a truly universal“Post-it Notes” application that can be used by most people shouldincorporate the use of a regular cell phone on a regular wirelessnetwork.

SUMMARY

In one embodiment, the invention discloses a method for storing andaccessing personal notes. The method comprises receiving a text messagefrom a cell phone or a similar device via the SMS protocol, identifyinga user who sent the text message, storing it on a server, and making itaccessible to the user over the Internet.

A further embodiment discloses a method comprising receiving a textmessage from a cell phone or similar device containing a command,identifying a user who sent the text message, and responding to thecommand.

In another embodiment, the invention discloses a system for storing andaccessing personal notes in accordance with the above method.

Other aspects of the present invention will become apparent from thedetailed description below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

While the appended claims set forth the features of the presentinvention with particularity, the invention, together with its objectsand advantages, will be more readily appreciated from the followingdetailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a server comprising a notes-access application, inaccordance with one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 2 shows an exemplary hardware for implementing the server of FIG. 1

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerousspecific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to oneskilled in the art that the invention can be practiced without thesespecific details. In other instances, structures and devices are shownonly in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the invention.

Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic describedin connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodimentof the invention. The appearance of the phrase “in one embodiment” invarious places in the specification are not necessarily all referring tothe same embodiment, nor are separate or alternative embodimentsmutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features aredescribed which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others.Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirementsfor some embodiments but not other embodiments.

Although the following description contains many specifics for thepurposes of illustration, one skilled in the art will appreciate thatmany variations and/or alterations to said details are within the scopeof the present invention. Similarly, although many of the features ofthe present invention are described in terms of each other, or inconjunction with each other, one skilled in the art will appreciate thatmany of these features can be provided independently of other features.Accordingly, this description of the invention is set forth without anyloss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, theinvention.

Referring to FIG. 1 of the drawings, reference 10 indicates anote-taking application, in accordance with one embodiment of theinvention. The note-taking application 10 makes it easy to store andquickly access digital content in the form of typed or handwrittenmemos, web page excerpts, emails, phone messages, addresses, passwords,brainstorms, sketches, documents, etc. Embodiments of the note-takingapplication can run on a computing device such as a desktop computer,notebook computer, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a smart phone. Inthe case of the example of FIG. 1, the note-taking application 10 isshown installed on a desktop computer 12. The note-taking application 10may store the digital content locally within a memory of the computingdevice, or remotely on a web server 14, as will be described in greaterdetail below. The computer 12 is able to communicate with a Web server14 which is under control of a service provider and which implements anotes-access application 16 as will be described in greater detailbelow. Communications between the computer 12 and the server 14 takesplace through a communications channel 18 provided by the Internet.

As will be seen, the notes-access application 16 comprises aregistration module 20, and authentication module 22, and a commandfunctions module 24. The notes-access application 16 is connected to auser database 26, and a notes database 28.

Embodiments of the invention disclose several communications channels bywhich digital content may be sent to the notes-access application 16 forstorage in the notes database 28, as will be described in greater detailbelow. The communications channels include a wireless voice network 30,a wireless data network 32, and a wired network 34. The network 30supports wireless voice communications, as well as the Short MessageService (SMS), and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) protocols. Thenetwork 32 is capable of supporting e-mail communications, whereas thenetwork 34 comprises a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). All ofthe above communications channels may also be used to access notesstored in the notes-access application 16, as will be described ingreater detail below.

1. SMS (Short Message Service) Channel

As a lightweight data sending protocol, SMS is implemented on almostevery mobile phone, even the cheapest model. SMS messages can be carriedwithin a regular voice wireless network, and does not need support ofnew generation data networks. Thus, SMS messages may be sent andreceived from anywhere where there is a mobile phone signal.

In one embodiment, the service provider provides one or more publicphone numbers and a user will register his/her cell phone number withthe service provider. In use, the user uses his/her cell phone 36 withthe caller-ID function activated, to send a text message via an SMSchannel through the network 30 to one of the aforementioned public phonenumbers provided by the service provider. In one embodiment, all suchSMS messages are forwarded to the server 14. By checking registrationinformation the server 14 can identify the user that sent the SMSmessage and store the content of the message within the notes database28. Later, when the user has access to a computer such as the computer12 with an Internet connection, and with the note-taking application 10installed, he/she will be able to access the text he/she sent from thecell phone 36, in the same user interface, as if the note was typeddirectly on computer 12.

For security reasons, the service provider may also issue a securitycode to each user (the security code may be chosen by the user). Withthe security code option, a user is required to type the security codebefore the content he/she wants to send as a SMS message. In this case,when the server 14 receives an SMS message from the cell phone 36, itwill verify the security code before storing the SMS message for theuser. In one embodiment, messages with un-verified security codes may bediscarded or saved in a temporary folder, and the user may be given theoption to decide if he/she wants to store the SMS message.

In one embodiment, a user may be able to access the notes stored in thedatabase 28 through the SMS channel. In this embodiment, the user textmessages a special word or command, for example, “list”, to the serviceprovider using the aforementioned public phone number. The serviceprovider may also provide alternative public phone number(s) for thispurpose. After server 14 receives any SMS message, it will check if themessage includes one of the commands. In one embodiment, the server 14may return several of the newest notes to the cell phone 36 via the SMSchannel in response to receiving SMS message from the cell phone 20 witha command. In some cases, a command may be followed by one or moreparameters to indicate to the server 14 to return specified notes to thecell phone 36. The notes that are returned may be the earlier SMSmessages to the server 14, or notes typed using the computer 12. In thelatter case, such notes would have been saved on the server 14 bysending the notes to the server 14 via the Internet. In accordance withdifferent embodiments of the invention, different commands may be usedto execute different functions on the server 14. By way of example,commands may be used to delete the last or some specific message on theserver 14, to make some messages public or to re-send some messages. Insome eases, before the server 14 executes a command contained in an SMSmessage, the SMS message must also include a security code associatedwith a user. In one embodiment, a user may initiate a telephone call tothe server 14 and then issue a voice command to cause the server 14 toperform a function such as sending SMS messages to mobile device 36, asdescribed above.

In one embodiment, if the cell phone 20 does not support a caller-IDfunction, the phone 36 is set to “private” mode, or the user has to usea phone that is not registered with the service provider, the user typesthe phone number that he/she registered with the service provider, withor without security code, followed by the text he/she wants to store andoptionally the command the server 14 is to execute. The server 14verifies the registered phone number contained in the SMS message andany security code before allowing access to the notes-access application16.

It is to be understood that access to the service is possible using anydevice capable of sending and receiving SMS messages, not just cellphones.

2. Voice Message Channel

In one embodiment, the service provided by the notes-access application16 is accessible through a voice telephone network defined by thewireless voice network 30, or by the PSTN 34. In this case, a user callsa public phone number provided by service provider user may call from acell phone or a landline phone). For this embodiment, the server 14 maybe provisioned with an automatic voice response system to answer thephone call. If the user calls from a phone registered with the serviceand the caller-ID function is activated, he/she can record a voicemessage. If the user calls from a phone that is not registered with theservice or the caller-ID function is not activated, he/she can key in aphone number that is registered with the service under guidance of theautomatic voice response system before leaving a voice message. In oneembodiment, messages from all phone, whether registered or not, requirea security code which must be verified by the server 14 before access tothe service is allowed.

If access to the service is allowed, the server 14 allows the user torecord a voice message, which is stored in the database 24 of thenotes-access application 16.

Using the computer 12, with the note-taking application 10 installedtherein, the user is able to connect to the database 28 through theInternet 18 in order to retrieve the voice message. In one embodiment,the notes-access application 16 includes a voice recognition function toautomatically convert the voice message to text format so that the voicemessage may be retrieved as a text message.

3. Photo Message Channel

A significant number of cell phones are equipped with a camera. Aphotograph taken on a cell phone with a built-in camera may be sent as aMultimedia Message (MMS) via an MMS channel supported by a wirelessnetwork 30 provided by a wireless carrier. As with the SMS messagesdescribed above, the MMS message can be sent through the regular voicenetwork to the server 14. In operation, a user takes a picture withtheir camera phone, he/she can attach a text message if required and thepicture is sent as an MMS message to a public phone number of theservice provider. For identification purposes at the server 14, the MMSmessage is transmitted with the caller-ID function of the cell phone 36activated. Thus, MMS messages from registered mobile phones can bestored against the Correct user. In cases where a cell phone 36 lacks acaller-ID function, the caller-ID function is turned off or the cellphone that is used to transmit the MMS message is not registered withthe service, identification of the server 14 is facilitated by havingthe user enter a registered phone number in the MMS message.

In one embodiment, the server 14 stores the picture (with message ifattached) against the user's entry in database 28. When user lateraccesses the database 28 with the computer 12 via the Internetconnection 18, he/she can view the picture. In one embodiment, thenotes-access application 16 includes an optional character recognitionfunction. Thus, pictures containing characters, for example, an image ofa page of a book may be automatically converted to text format.

4. Fax Channel

Although an old fashion technology compared with email, fax machines arestill very popular, especially in the business world. In one embodiment,access to the notes-access application 16 is provided by a fax channel.

If a user has access to a private fax machine 40, he/she can registerthe phone number of the fax machine with the service provider. Faxesfrom the registered fax machine 40 to one of the public numbers of theservice provider, are mapped based on the sending number to a user andstored under the user's corresponding entry in the database 28. Faxescontaining pictures containing characters may be automatically convertedto text format using to a optical character recognition function.

In reality, most people do not have a private fax machine. They eitheruse an office fax machine or one provided by an office services store.In such cases, there must be some way for server 14 to identify eachincoming fax as being from a particular user. There are two possibleoptions for such identification, in accordance with one embodiment. Oneoption is to add the user's registered phone number, and an optionalsecurity code as described above, as an extension, when dialing theservice provider's public phone number to send the fax. Thus, the server14 can use the registered phone number and the optional security code tomap that incoming fax to a particular user. Another option is totemporarily register the phone number of a public fax machine. With thisoption, the user calls the automatic voice response system describedabove from their registered phone number, and is guided to enter thephone number of fax machine that is going to be used. In one embodiment,the user can also do it from an unregistered phone number, but will berequired to enter their registered phone number, so that the serviceprovider can identify the user. In one embodiment, a fax machine may beregistered with the server 14 by sending an SMS message to the server 14with an appropriate command together with the fax number to beregistered, as text. For temporarily registered phone numbers, in oneembodiment, the server 14 stores incoming faxes from a fax machine withthe temporarily registered number against a user in the database 24 thatregistered the fax machine. Temporarily registered numbers areregistered for a predefined period of time, say 10 minutes afterregistration and for the next incoming fax or the next few incomingfaxes.

In one embodiment, the server 14 allows a user to retrieve messagesstored in the database 28 for that user, using a fax machine. In thisembodiment, the user sends a command as at SMS message to the server 14,or as a voice command entered with the help of the automatic voiceresponse system described above. The command may specify which messagesthe user wants to retrieve, as well as the receiving fax number.Responsive to receiving the command, the server 14 sends the messages tothe specified fax machine as a regular fax.

5. Email Channel

In one embodiment, the invention also provides an e-mail channel throughthe wireless data network 32 by which the notes-access application 16may be accessed. For this embodiment, the service provider publishes oneor more public email addresses. A user registers his/her personal emailaddress with the service provider. E-mails sent to one of the publicemail addresses of service provider from a mobile device, such as asmart phone, capable of sending and receiving e-mails are mapped by theserver 14 based on the registered e-mail address to a particular user ofthe service and then stored in the database 28 against that user. Foradded security, a user may be required to type a security code in thee-mail, with security code, which is verified by the server 14 beforestorage thereof. In one embodiment, commands may also be embedded withinan e-mail, each command to cause the server 14 to execute a particularfunction. For example, a user can send a ‘get’ command to the server 14within an e-mail. This command will cause the server 14 to email back afew most recent or some specific content back to user.

6. IM (Instance Messenger) Channel

In one embodiment, access to the notes-access application 16 may beprovided by an IM channel implemented using the wireless data network32. In this case the service provider publishes one or more messengerIDs. A user registers their messenger ID with the service provider.Messages sent by the user using the registered messenger ID are mappedby the server 14 to the user and content associated with the message isstored against the user in the database 28. As in the case of e-mailmessages, IM messages may include security codes and commands.

Embodiments of the present invention also disclose a system andtechniques for accessing an online database of personal notes via acellular phone using the SMS text message protocol. In accordance withthese techniques, a SMS text message is received by the system, itsphone number of origin is compared with a database of registered usersto identify who sent it, and the body of the text message is thenentered into a message database on a server accessible to registeredusers over the Internet. The server can also respond to commands sentvia the SMS text message protocol by modifying the data within thedatabase or sending text messages to a user's cellular phone. This makesthe database accessible to users regardless of whether they are near acomputer.

In one embodiment, the server 14 receives SMS text messages from themobile device 36, identifies the user using the authentication module 22(in one embodiment, by comparing a phone number from which a textmessage originates with information in user database 26 comprising phonenumbers provided by registered users of the system), and enters the textmessage into notes database 28. The notes in the notes database 28 canthen be accessed via the Internet 18, using the computer 12, asdescribed above.

In another embodiment, if a text message sent by a user contains acommand that is supported by the command functions 24, the server 14responds to the command by modifying the data in the notes database 28,in accordance with the command or by sending a SMS text messagecontaining requested information to a user's mobile device 36. Forexample; the system can respond to a command of “list” by sending theuser a SMS text message containing a list of all the notes in the user'saccount. The command database can also include a command for deletingnotes, a command for displaying notes entered at a particular time ordate, etc.

In one embodiment, the user database 26 comprises user phone numbers.The authentication module 22 would then identify a phone number fromwhich a text message originates and search for that phone number in theuser database 26. The user database 26 may also, in another embodiment,comprise passwords as well as phone numbers, to enable greater securityfor the users' data. In that embodiment, the authentication module 22would identify a phone number from which a text message originates,search for that phone number in the user database 26 and then identitythe password corresponding to the phone number in the user database 26and look for that password in the body of the text message. If the textmessage does not contain the correct password, it is rejected by thesystem.

A text message that is properly authenticated by the authenticationmodule 22 is then, in one embodiment of the invention, analyzed by thecommand functions module 24 to determine whether or not it contains arecognized command. If the command functions module 24 determines thatthe text message contains a recognized command then the command isexecuted. If the text message does not contain a recognized command, inone embodiment, the command may simply be ignored. Various additionaldata can be entered into the notes database 28 along with the body ofthe message—for example, a date/time stamp can be entered along witheach message.

As will be appreciated, embodiments of the invention require that eachuser be pre-registered on the system. For example, a user can create anaccount online, entering his or her phone number and (in someembodiments) a password. Accounts can also be automatically created, ifthe system adds each phone number it does not recognize to the userdatabase and creates a new account.

FIG. 2 of the drawings shows an example of hardware 50 that may be usedto implement the server 14, or the computing device 12, in accordancewith one embodiment of the invention. The hardware 50 typically includesat least one processor 52 coupled to a memory 154. The processor 52 mayrepresent one or more processors (e.g., microprocessors), and the memory54 may represent random access memory (RAM) devices comprising a mainstorage of the hardware 50, as well as any supplemental levels of memorye.g., cache memories, non-volatile or back-up memories (e.g.programmable or flash memories), read-only memories, etc. In addition,the memory 54 may be considered to include memory storage physicallylocated elsewhere in the hardware 50, e.g. any cache memory in theprocessor 52 as well as any storage capacity used as a virtual memory,e.g., as stored on a mass storage device 60.

The hardware 500 also typically receives a number of inputs and outputsfor communicating information externally. For interface with a user oroperator, the hardware 50 may include one or more user input devices 56(e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, heart rate monitor, camera, etc.) and aoutput devices 58 (e.g., a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panel).

For additional storage, the hardware 50 may also include one or moremass storage devices 60, e.g., a floppy or other removable disk drive, ahard disk drive, a Direct Access Storage Device (DASD), an optical drive(e.g. a Compact Disk (CD) drive, a Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) drive,etc.) and/or a tape drive, among others. Furthermore, the hardware 70may include an interface with one or more networks 62 (e.g., a localarea network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a wireless network,and/or the Internet among others) to permit the communication ofinformation with other computers coupled to the networks. It should beappreciated that the hardware 50 typically includes suitable analogand/or digital interfaces between the processor 52 and each of thecomponents 54, 56, 58, and 62 as is well known in the art.

The hardware 50 operates under the control of an operating system 64,and executes various computer software applications, components,programs, objects, modules, etc. to implement the notes-accessapplication 16, or the note-taking application 10, described above.Moreover, various applications, components, programs, objects, etc.,collectively indicated by reference 76 in FIG. 2, may also execute onone or more processors in another computer coupled to the hardware 50via a network 62, e.g. in a distributed computing environment, wherebythe processing required to implement the functions of a computer programmay be allocated to multiple computers over a network.

In general, the routines executed to implement the embodiments of theinvention may be implemented as part of an operating system or aspecific application, component, program, object, module or sequence ofinstructions referred to as “computer programs.” The computer programstypically comprise one or more instructions set at various times invarious memory and storage devices in a computer, and that, when readand executed by one or more processors in a computer, cause the computerto perform operations necessary to execute elements involving thevarious aspects of the invention. Moreover, while the invention has beendescribed in the context of fully functioning computers and computersystems, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the variousembodiments of the invention are capable of being distributed as aprogram product in a variety of forms, and that the invention appliesequally regardless of the particular type of computer-readable mediaused to actually effect the distribution. Examples of computer-readablemedia include but are not limited to recordable type media such asvolatile and non-volatile memory devices, floppy and other removabledisks, hard disk drives, optical disks (e.g., Compact Disk Read-OnlyMemory (CD ROMS), Digital Versatile Disks, (DVDs), etc.), among others.

While certain exemplary embodiments have been described and shown in theaccompanying drawings, it is to be understood that such embodiments aremerely illustrative and not restrictive of the broad invention and thatthis invention is not limited to the specific constructions andarrangements shown and described, since various other modifications mayoccur to those ordinarily skilled in the art upon studying thisdisclosure. In an area of technology such as this, where growth is fastand further advancements are not easily foreseen, the disclosedembodiments may be readily modifiable in arrangement and detail asfacilitated by enabling technological advancements without departingfrom the principals of the present disclosure.

1. A method, comprising: providing a service over a network, the serviceto create a user-account for a user; receive a voice message from theuser; convert at least a portion of the voice message into text; andprovide the text to the user.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein theservice is operable to receive the voice message by making a recordingof a telephone call from the user.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein thenetwork comprises the Internet.
 4. A computer-readable medium havingstored thereon a sequence of instructions which when executed by asystem, causes the system to perform a method, comprising: providing aservice over a network, the service to create a user-account for a user;receive a voice message from the user; convert at least a portion of thevoice message into text; and provide the text to the user.
 5. Thecomputer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the service is operable toreceive the voice message by making a recording of a telephone call fromthe user.
 6. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein thenetwork comprises the Internet.
 7. A system, comprising: a processor;and a memory coupled to the processor, the memory storing instructionswhich when executed by the processor causes the system perform a method,comprising: providing a service over a network, the service to create auser-account for a user; receive a voice message from the user; convertat least a portion of the voice message into text; and provide the textto the user.
 8. The system of claim 7, wherein the service is operableto receive the voice message by making a recording of a telephone callfrom the user.
 9. The system of claim 7, wherein the network comprisesthe Internet.